When the subject is the biggest snub from an All-Bryant football team and the position is quarterback, then the answer has to be Joe Namath or Ken Stabler, whichever one didn't make the cut - right?

The top quarterback to play for coach Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama is Ken Stabler, according to the All-Bryant team selected by AL.com.

That would seem to make Namath the snubbed player.

But there's another quarterback at least as deserving of placement as Bryant's best quarterback - Pat Trammell.

Trammell never had a cool nickname; the Snake came to Alabama from Foley with his, and Broadway Joe was born when Namath got to the New York Jets. Trammell is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as Namath and Stabler are. He never came to personify "cool" to a nation of football fans as they would.

But what Namath, Stabler and Trammell did at Alabama is quite similar, and what Trammell did for Alabama may be unsurpassed by any player.

In the three seasons that Trammell played at Alabama, the Tide had a 26-3-4 record. In the three seasons that Namath played at Alabama, the Tide had a 29-4 record. In the three seasons that Stabler played at Alabama, the Tide had a 28-3-2 record. If those records were lined up in a standings table, one game would separate first from third.

Each quarterback played for a national-championship team - Trammell in 1961, Namath in 1964 and Stabler in 1965 - and Trammell and Stabler each led a team that enjoyed an undefeated season - Trammell in 1961 and Stabler in 1966.

Each of the three quarterbacks was the starter for one SEC championship team, too.

As passers, Trammell threw the least - although he was the first Alabama player to reach 1,000 passing yards in a season with an SEC-leading 1,035 in 1961 - and Namath the most. But their career passing-efficiency ratings are close - Stabler at 128.01, Namath at 125.69 and Trammell at 122.54.

Trammell does have a distinguishing feature in his passing stats, though - one that is completely out of its era. In 1961, Trammell threw two interceptions in 133 passes, a rate of 1.5 percent. His career interception rate was 1.8 percent. Both those figures stood as Alabama records for almost 50 years.

Trammell ran the most (307 carries for 1,119 yards and 15 touchdowns in his career, including nine in 1961 when he led the SEC in rushing TDs) and Namath the least (190-563-15).

It's easy to label Trammell with a term that didn't exist at the time he was playing - game-manager - because Alabama gave up only 25 points in his championship season. But the Tide's defense was stout for Namath's 1964 title team, giving up 88 points, and Stabler's 1966 undefeated team, yielding 44 points.

As far as individual accolades, each of the three quarterbacks was an All-SEC first-team selection as a senior. But Trammell earned something else - the SEC Most Valuable Player Award for the 1961 season. In Namath's three seasons as Alabama's starting QB, the SEC MVPs were LSU's Jerry Stovall and Auburn's Jimmy Sidle and Tucker Frederickson. In Stabler's two seasons as a starter, the winners were Florida's Steve Spurrier and Vanderbilt's Bob Goodridge.

In 1961, Trammell finished fifth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy and was the top choice of the South Region. Neither Namath nor Stabler finished in the top 10 of the Heisman voting or carried the South.

Comparing the three quarterbacks in these ways, though, serves only to show that each was an outstanding player and would have been a good choice for the All-Bryant quarterback.

What's different about Trammell is he was foundational - the winning No. 12 under center for the Tide before Namath or Stabler.

It's easy to forget given all of Alabama's storied football success that in the four seasons before Bryant took over as coach in 1958, the Crimson Tide had a cumulative record of 8-29-4.

The story goes that while Bryant was deciding if he should leave Texas A&M for Alabama, he made a secretive visit to Scottsboro to visit Trammell's family. At the time, the quarterback planned to go to Georgia Tech, and the coach told the player that he would go to Alabama if Trammell would go, too.

Bryant, of course, did go to Alabama and not only restored the Crimson Tide's glory days, but made them more glorious. And it started with Trammell at quarterback.

The 1961 team quarterbacked by Trammell earned Alabama's first SEC champion since 1953. It was the first undefeated team and the first team considered a national champion for Alabama since 1945. And it was the first Alabama team to finish first in the final Associated Press poll of a football season.

Trammell did not pursue a career in professional football, so he never became the iconic national figure that Namath and Stabler did.

Trammell became a physician and then lost his life to cancer at age 28 on Dec. 10, 1968, which Bryant called "the saddest day of my life."

A little more than 14 years later, Bryant retired and gave an interview to Clyde Bolton of the Birmingham News, who asked him to name his favorite player.

Bryant gave a long answer full of players from his unparalleled career, but then he said: "Now you'll have to forgive me here for getting a little sentimental but ... Pat Trammell was not just my favorite player ... he was the favorite person ... I've ever had in my life."

In conjunction with its All-Bryant team, AL.com is giving readers the opportunity to select one, too. So far, the fans agree with the AL.com pick of Stabler as the All-Bryant quarterback, with Namath second in the voting. Trammell is a distant third.

But if we could somehow ask the coach himself to pick the All-Bryant quarterback, would it be surprising if his choice were Pat Trammell?

Pat Trammell (12) on the sideline with Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant during the quarterback's last game - a 10-3 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1962, that capped an 11-0 season.AL.com file